Author
Topic: Rich's Royal Blue G40 - J8AVJ (Read 8570 times)

I've been debating whether to bother with a thread for this but decided I might as-well so you lot can keep track of the car.

I bought the car off Joe at the beginning of May after my brother (Matt who owns G40KCK) showed me the ad on here. I had been saving for another Mk2 Golf for a while but the prices were getting silly for poor condition cars so when this turned up and was literally 2 minutes down the road I thought why not join the G40 club.

Its an original royal blue G40, was on around 119000 miles when I got it, recently resprayed by the previous owner and had just had the engine rebuilt. It has been rolling roaded at 151bhp at the fly wheel from memory since the rebuild. The car was owned by a bloke called Jonny before Joe got it from what I can gather and he appears to be the guy that stripped it out (there is an old thread on here somewhere).

When I picked the car up it was completely stripped out except for the dash and the front seats. Most of the parts were still there which I got off Joe but as I found out a lot of them were broken, dirty, or many of the smaller clips and screws were missing.

This is how it was when I got it home (sorry for the crappy pictures);

Most of the bits I got with it;

So Saturday after I'd bought it me and Matt got started putting the interior back in, changed the gear knob from the plastic one to a leather one we had lying about and fitted a genuine VW head-unit blank...a couple of hours later this was the result;

Then started buying a load of stuff that was either missing or needed replacing - Thank you to the guys on here that have sold me bits and pieces so far;

Car only came with 1 key and it wasn't genuine so bought a couple of blanks from the greek ebay guy and got them cut locally;

Door handles had been recently replaced but they were cheap copies and the drivers door didn't open very easily so I bought a couple of new ones and rebuilt the tumblers, I fitted some genuine chrome inserts I had lying about and now both doors lock and open correctly although I am still missing the rods for the door pins;

Next up was to rebuild the rear drum brakes and just a general tidy up;

They weren't too bad tbh but for the sake of £20 I thought I might as-well, also Matt cleaned and wax-oiled the inner arches and I painted up the drums/calipers and fitted some 20mm spacers on the rear which we had sat in the garage. I did get new drums when I got the internal bits but I didn't want to get new bearings pressed in and I couldn't be bothered changing cylinders, maybe another time...

Now it was time for the fun stuff, I got a new replica supercharged badge from trimsport;

New pedal rubbers;

Rear plinth was knackered and partly held on with double sided sticky foam so I got some new inserts, screws and a second hand plinth off here;

And bought some new clips for the rear boot panal;

I might end up re-trimming this because there is a chunk missing out of it but not sure yet.

I got some paint mixed up at halfords next and tidied up the boot. As you will all be aware, the shock turrets are always scratched up on these cars but my wheel well is also slighty crushed which I can't do much about however a quick lick of paint has made a big difference;

The interior I got with the car is completely standard except the front seats had been re-trimmed with half leather with the original G40 centers. I've never liked the standard G40 interior to be honest but it has grown on me so I think I'm going to keep the seats as they are for a while. Unfortunately the rear bench has been butchered and the doorcards were all typically faded and in a poor state. I haven't managed to find a new set worth re-trimming yet and I was tired of having no doorcards so I decided to paint the standard ones and tidy them up as best I could until something better comes up;

New membrane made up;

Doorcard on and looking like it fits a lot better than in the picture than in real life;

I also picked up a new dash blank to replaced the one with a hole in it after the alarm had been removed, no pictures of that though which I'm sure you will all be dissapointed about but if you squint really hard you can just about make it out in the last two pictures.

I had an old wooden momo which I bought off Matt when he sold his 190e so I bought a boss off ebay and stuck it on;

Unfortunately I'm not keen on it and don't think it suites the car at all so I've decided to change it for another momo I found on ebay which I think will suite the car much better as it looks very similar to the standard wheel;

It's not arrived yet though but I'll get some pics when it's on.

I tidied up the bay a bit next with loom tape, a new air filter and I also fitted the plastic cowling thing which was bought through the forum plus a new sticker, decided to got for the english version;

Hopefully I'll be able to get a standard air-box at some point and I plan on re-painting the slam panal but probably after I've fitted the PPP manifold to avoid scratching it up. I have a new clip for the bonnet strut as-well but I'll put that on when I've done the painting.

In between all of this Matt got the rear belts, parcel shelf supports and parcel shelf back in but the rear bench is too knackered to use at the moment so I have bought some faux leather material off ebay and plan on re-trimming it myself this week. All being well, I'll have some pictures of that in the next few days however I've never re-trimmed anything in my life so wish me luck.

Finally, I'm not a big fan of BBS ra's in anything bigger that 13" and was always going to replace them as soon as I bought the car. I had some rial mesh 13x6 wheels in storage which I ran on mY old genesis coupe a few years ago. I wasn't panning to run 13's on this car at first because of clearance issues and started looking for some 14" wheels in similar spec to Matts mahles but when I added up the cost of wheels, refurb and tyres it was too much to justfy so I just decided to run the rials and got some new yokohama tyres fitted for about half the cost of 14's which resulted in this;

So that's where I'm up to so far, plans for the future are as follows;

Sold the R32 now then or just expanded the car collection? Did you enjoy Matts so much you wanted your own haha.

Looks great, keep up with the attention to detail!

Hi Tom, I've still got the R32, fortunately I don't have to drive my car every day so I can just about afford both but I should probably swap it for something more practical really.

Haha!, to be fair he did actually let me have a drive in his recently and about a month later I own this one so maybe that did have something to do with it, I was pretty set on a Mk2 golf but the prices have gone silly so thought I might as-well own something a bit more exclusive even if it's not quite as popular. How's yours running? maybe see you a few shows later in the year?

Smart looking motor, if you need any more trim bits I am only in York.

Is it a quick motor?

Hiya mate, I do need some of your bits please, just hadn't got round to pm'ing you yet. I need your gaiter clip thingy and maybe the inner door handles if they are half decent. I was going to get in touch because I'm off all week so if you're free at any point I'll nip up.

The car definitely feels quick to me compared to my R32 but then again it is paper thin so it could just be an illusion of speed, its really fun to drive though which is the main thing as I wanted something I look forward to taking out rather than something pretty but dull.

Ok, so spent all of Monday and Tuesday last week re-trimming my rear bench, the result is pretty poor unfortunately but for my first (and probably last ) attempt, it'll do, at the very least it matches the front seats now. I don't have any before pictures on my camera but it was just a standard G40 rear bench with torn seams and a large portion of the back part cut off, this is how it looks now;

Painted the back up to cover some scratches;

I then stabbed myself through the hand with a screw driver so I wasn't able to get much else done the rest of the week however I made a trip up to meet Martin on Friday (physicsfool) who gave me a few interior bits (thanks again mate, really appreciate it - your car is wicked ), and I got those fitted on Saturday along with my new wheel and a head unit which I got as a gift for my Birthday;

I wasn't originally going to put a head unit back in the car because I only really listen to the radio when I'm driving but this is an Alpha 3 which is radio only so I thought it was too cool to pass up, it works great and I'm really pleased with it. The new wheel I think suites the car much better than the wooden one and has a nicer feel to the standard wheel as it's a bit chunkier - I realise it looks huge in the pictures but it is 360mm which is same as standard (I wanted something 320mm but they are very few to choose from and all cost a fortune).

Car was then washed as I planned to take it up to CumbriaVAG on Sunday but because the weather looked poor we ended up going in the Golf in the end which obviously meant it was dry all day then haha!, nevermind, probabaly take it so the next one.

Just a small update having spent all day messing with it, E38 is next weekend and I'm planning on taking this so I decided to tidy up a few bits,

Plan was to change the fan and replace the OEM boost pipes with some Silicone hose I'd got off ebay but when I realised how much I had to take off to get the fan out I decided I might as-well paint the slam panal whilst I was at it - something that I was planning on doing after I'd got the manifold fitted.

Here's the old fan next to the new febi one I'd bought;

The loom attached to the new one is a Mk2 golf plug I'd bought on ebay because the original fan plug had been cut off my loom, I nearly bought the correct white plug at VWfest a couple of weeks back and I wish I had done now but this one seems to work fine - it just has to be plugged in the opposite way round.

This is how the old fan was connected;

With the tape peeled off;

So i cut the Mk2 loom up and soldered it on;

Not great but still an improvement on before;

Then I set about cutting up my 1m of silicon hose which was much harder then I was expecting trying to get neat edges...

I'd already put the new 3rd peice onto the inlet before I took that last photo.

Then I set about painting the slam panal. I only got one photo during the whole process as I wanted to get it all done as quickly as possible so I could put the bay back together (I know that's not best practice when it comes to painting stuff but it was never going to be a show finish out of a spray can anyway and I think it turned out ok. No before pictures either but it had the usual rust above the grill clips, above the headlamps and around the bolt holes. I sanded it down as best I could, wiped it all down with some degreasing wipes and then sprayed some fill primer like so;

Then it was two coats of grey primer, wiped that down and smoothed it off and then painted it with what was left of the paint I used on the boot turrets. I got the paint mixed at Halfords which was the first time I'd asked for a specific paint code and I'm impressed how well it matches to be fair. I then finished it off with some clear coat. I haven't had chance to polish it up yet but I think it came out OK for a couple of hours work and it's definitely better than it was.

I then put it all back together, new bonnet stay clip, black expansion cap lid and I painted up the washer fluid cap to match - I thought all the blue bits were making it look a bit untidy.

I still plan on getting an original air-box when I track one down, and obviously I still have the 4-1 manifold to sort out but other than that there isn't much else to mess with in the bay.

I also managed to get some door-pin rods at VW festival so I have fitted those and now I have the amazing abilty of locking and unlocking the doors from inside , slowly it's coming together.

Once again sorry for the shite quality on the photos to who ever decides to read this.

Haha! I know you'll get there eventually mate, I'm excited to see it all done if you're still planning to re-shelling it again and we need to get a proper meet sorted for next year. If you ever need an extra pair of hands lets us know, I'll be happy to help.

Me and matt went down to E38 this weekend, great show as always and we were really lucky with the weather, it was pretty much perfect both days.

I managed to pick up a second hand intercooler pipe at the auto jumble for £5 which is in much better condition than mine so I'll wrestle that on at some point and now I'm considering changing the wheels back to my original plan of 14" BBS RZ's if I can find a straight set. It probably won't see much use now until next year so plenty of time to get a few bits sorted.

First of all a couple of weeks ago I went and got a new exhaust made up at Zorstec in Shipley. I'd heard good things about them and they were only 2 minutes down the road so I spent most of the day there helping fit the PPP manifold I got with the car and then watching Andy build the rest of the system from scratch. I decided to go with a 2 1/4" pipe with a flexi on the manifold, small center silencer and a hidden rear backbox with down turned tail pipe. I haven't got any photos of the whole thing yet but here's a photo of the rear now with the new hidden back box;

I'm pretty happy with it, it's seriously loud on throttle though and I'm not sure if that's because of the down turned tailpipe or what. It turned out the 'cat' that was on the car had been hollowed out and welded up which might be why it sounded so tinny and horrible. The manifold looks amazing though and it fits great so respect to PPP for the development of those.

So anyway, Matt and I made a visit to Pete's on Sunday in an attempt to help clear out a few of his G40 parts at his old house (thanks Pete), I got a few things which I've been struggling to find such as the roof gutter trims and an airbox, I also got a brand new dipstick with red handle to replace my broken yellow one...

A few of the bits that I intended to fit today;

Gutters before;

Gutters after;

Now the reason for getting another charger outlet elbow piece is because the manifold I have has a higher 1st header (to clear a turbo as far as I'm aware) so the triangle mount for the charger is now redundant. As you can see in the next photo the mount and bracing on the elbow peice looks stupid without the manifold mount in place, so I wanted to try and smooth an elbow to get rid of the ugly part.

So armed with a set of files and an angle grinder, I practiced for about 10 minutes on a damaged elbow Pete gave me and then spent about 2 further hours resulting in this;

Its not perfect but it's I think its decent enough for a first attempt and it looks alright when it's fitted;

Next up was the airbox, I cleaned it all up and fitted the rubber inlet pipe but when I went to fit the actual box I realised that the catch can which was originally bolted to the Jabbasport heat shroud can't go anywhere else at the moment due to the length of the breather pipes. I probably should have known this as Matt runs an airbox on his car and there is no gap between that and the cambelt cover but nevermind, I'll decide what to do another day but for now I just decided to paint the chrome shroud matt black and re-fit it which leaves me with this;

I'm still on the hunt for some bigger wheels but nothing decent has come up yet. I'm considering going for 15's now but not sure what to do.